Bald Eagle at First Light, Lake Hemet, California - Need Advice on Exposure

[Loi Nguyen]

The sight of a huge bird with white head coming straight at you at first light is a beautiful sight. I was the only one out on the lake at sunrise.

1DX
500f4 II + 1.4X III
1/2000
f5.6
ISO-640
HH from a row boat.
Evaluative Metering, + 1 EV off the blue sky
Manual Exposure
NIK detail extractor to bring out the details of the dark feathers.
Original horizontal, cropped to vertical to about 5M pixels.

I'm thinking the whites may be a bit hot. Normally for white birds, I would shoot at +2/3 EV off the blue sky, but I was concerned about under-exposing the dark feathers.
The head may be slightly soft, could be from the moving boat or focus.

Appreciate your comments.

Thank you

Loi

[arash_hazeghi]

it's underexposed a bit, the whites look orange/grey a bit. it might be the Nik filter you are using...

[Loi Nguyen]

it's underexposed a bit, the whites look orange/grey a bit. it might be the Nik filter you are using...

Hi Arash, the whites does look orange, but I think it was the golden ray of the first light at sunrise. I erased most of the effect of the NIK filer on the whites in the original post. Here is a repost start from scratch with DPP conversion. I did see areas on the whites registering 255. In the OP, I recovered by reducing the Highlights to -2. Here I left it alone. The drak feathers don't look bad here without the Nik. the OP was processed on a lap top and it seemed much too dark, and that was why I used the Nik filter.

Thank you for looking.

Loi

[arash_hazeghi]

I'd reduce the orange cast but keep the overall warm tones.
also a tighter 4X3 maybe a bit better here

TFS

[Satish Ranadive]

Beautiful flight pose you have captured, Loi. Before reading Arash's comments,I also thought yellow cast on head is because of morning golden light.
Very nice wing position,details,lights and composition.

Regards,
Satish.

[vishaljadhav]

i feel the second image is nice, the IQ looks great and the colors look just nice to the eye

[Vivaldo Damilano]

Excellent repost, like the birds pose but agree with a tighter 4x3. I think it would work better.

[Loi Nguyen]

I'd reduce the orange cast but keep the overall warm tones.
also a tighter 4X3 maybe a bit better here

TFS

Hi Arash,

Thank you for pointing out the orange cast. I changed the WB from Auto to Daylight in this second repost, cropped to 4:3 ratio, Reduced highlights by -2 during DPP conversion, and applied NR only to the lower wing of the bird. There is still some warm glow of the early sunrise, which I like to keep.

Thank you everyone. Hope you like it better.

Loi

[Doug Brown]

Hi Loi. Strong shadows on Bald Eagles make for a tough exposure. I think you handled the exposure pretty well overall. Maybe a little underexposed. Try shadows and highlights in Photoshop or the shadows adjustment brush in Lightroom to help you bring up the darks.

[David Salem]

Hi Loi. Glad you found them and got some nice shots. Thanks for the info on the nest location. I like the final product, looks good.